Wolf in the Fold
by Noblehorns
Summary: "Loki was the clever one, the flighty one — a wolf amongst men. He was a predator at his best, and a demon at his worst." • Loki-centric, character study, drama.
1. Prologue: Passageways and Pathways

**Disclaimer:** _Thor_ belongs to Marvel and its creators, writers, artists, and other respective copyright holders. Not this bitch.

**Note:** Yes, I realize this is the name of a _Star Trek: TOS_ episode. Shhh.

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><p><strong>Wolf in the Fold<br>**Prologue: _Passageways and Pathways_

"The pathways of hell are hardly foreign;  
>we shall end up there one day if we tarry too long.<br>From a passageway to a pathway:  
>it is an easy fall, without shock or surprises."<p>

— Muriel Barbery, _The Elegance of the Hedgehog_

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><p>"Why let go?" — it was what Loki inquired of himself; his life in his brother's — and his father's — hands (strong hands as they were, used for destruction as many times as salvation), dangling above destruction and oblivion. Reality and grammar would dictate that the question was, in actuality, a simple one: three words and a reason. While he considered the counter — "Why should I <em>not<em> let go?" — he observed the simple things, the hidden truths, in what lay about him. He took in the sweat that beaded down Odin's brow, swelling and growing larger in the canyons on his face, and the way the All Father grit his teeth with the strain of holding his two sons from churning destruction, with a detached manner. Thor, his brother, who was open mouthed, with a face twisted in agony, as his shoulders groaned and popped against the two opposing forces dragging at him — then, Loki noticed. Odin, father, could not save both of them on his own.

Wasn't that a reason why he had to let go? Wasn't that why he had to let go, why he had to make the choice in place of his father? Why, even, the query had come to him?

To let go, or not to let go?

It seemed right, did it not? To let the good son live, saved by his father, and have the bad one (the awful, awful one: the one who killed his _biological_ father, committed patricide) vanish into the void, it all seemed right, did it not?

He had no doubts, none whatsoever, that help was on its way, Odin's strength and Thor's shoulders needed only to last a few more moments — but. But Odin loved his brother more, his true son, drew more pride from Thor's nobility and savage power than from Loki's... duplicity, devious, even, in his survival. _Survival?_ If he survived, if he allowed himself to be pulled up, he would be hated, wouldn't he? For what he did, what he planned, what he plotted, for what he was willing to do, he would be shunned by Ásgard, for they would know. They knew, even now, even before, when they had been wary.

Loki was the clever one, the flighty one — a wolf amongst men. His domesticated cousin, the dog, might have been man's best friend, his companion, his tool, his _pet_, but he was not — he was a predator at his best, and a demon at his worst. A creature in, all regards, to be wary of, no matter the situation. And that was why, he determined, they had been wary. Were wary. Are wary. The Warriors Three had avoided him, why Sif warned them to be cautious, to not say too much in his presence: the vile, slippery thing that he was. It was as though Ásgard could tell, even when he could not, the true nature of his blood. It was why even Thor, love him as he might, had begun to appear increasingly uncomfortable around him, despite not being wary, or disturbed by what his blood doubtlessly was.

Loki looked, slowly, to the void below, the churning, moaning void, and felt a wistful, saccharine twist to his lips as he turned to his brother. Thor understood, immediately, from the savage cry slipping from his throat, "No! Brother — "

He let go. He let go, fell for approximately thirty seconds, and then _grabbed _for those hidden ways, those hidden passageways between realms — those that were hidden from even Heimdall, and his keen eyes. He pulled at them, slipping through the soft curling fibers, until he came to a grinding halt. His back slammed against a solid but invisible surface, a soreness curling in his arm, the one that had _let go_. Loki panted, watching as the hairline cracks thriving on his hands ghosted over and sealed themselves shut, fading into blue then the white of his hide. He went limp, staring listlessly up into the smooth, rolling emptiness. He took his moment of peace, of aloneness, of singularity, and threw it away.

Rolling over so that he could stand, Loki drew his knees up to his chest and felt his spine protest, bodily, at the action, and forced himself to stand. Armor, gold and green in tone, hugged tightly, lovingly at him, even as he began to strip himself of the remnants of Ásgard still clinging, hopefully, to him. Down, far out into the expansive emptiness, went the interlocking pieces of the heavy plates, down went the guards, the oppressive weight — down without a whisper, more of a tantalizing roar. Emerald fabric pooled at his feet as he removed the cape with a long, drawn sigh. As Loki leaned back, his eyelids drifted down, and peered through his lashes. The trembling beginnings of a smirk curled upward, and a breathless laugh occupied the darkness.

What to do — where to go — ? What to do, when he had nothing planned? Where to go, when he wasn't welcome in the only places he could (potentially) call home?

His shoulders — free and lighter, though not entirely free of that dreadful oppression ("Where had he gone wrong? Where was his plan faulty? Who had been the unpredictable element, the factor which he could not properly control?") — were slumped as he considered, and then — _why not?_

He had nowhere else to go, and none could follow him, so, _why not?_

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><p>— [<em> "Would you offer your throat to the wolf?" <em>] —

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><p>"You look like you've seen a ghost," someone commented as she blearily wiped the sun and sleep from her eyes, before her heart startled and she tensed at the feel of cold iron at her throat. Cautiously, she looked up, eyes wide and goosebumps growing along her arms: she shivered and stared morosely into the face of her attacker — lean, feral: full of hunger. Jaded eyes. She knew those eyes; that strange, creepy fellow they had picked up outside of Griesheim on their way back to the States. While he hadn't seem worth it that early on, having only been picked up because — while not physically intimidating in the sense of brawn — his very presence filled people with unease. A natural, long forgotten hyper awareness of predators resurfaced where the man was. He was useful for intimidating clients into letting them do what they had to do; and, in the end, he had ended up being full of wonderful ideas.<p>

He had called himself Loki.

The woman hissed, shifting under the threat of a slit throat, fumbling under her pillow for the pistol hidden there. She spoke in hope of distracting him, "Now, Loki, you think _my_ workers listen to you if you take control in a backhanded coup like this? They'll eat you alive, bones and all. You know it, I know it, so, why not put that blade down? If you want to move up, a raise, I can make that happen — you're worth the expenses."

He was also dangerous; her blood sung with that knowledge and it was set in stone when his other hand darted out to grasp her wrist the moment her fingers touched the hidden pistol. She gulped and gasped when his cold, cold fingers curled around her wrist and clenched. Her bones groaned as they ground together and her fingers began to throb as the circulation was cut off, and _when had he been so strong?_ Intent on wiping that slight from his face, she wrenched the pistol out from beneath the pillow with her other hand, and against her training, against her better instinct, fired. The bullet never hit that smug hound in the face like she had fancied it would.

She didn't see where it went, nor had she noticed right away when the pistol was suddenly torn from her grasp by another— _another Loki?_

The one crushing her wrist smiled pleasantly, and leaned forward until his lips were brushing against her ear. He murmured, "I'm afraid that... you're help isn't necessary."

Loki let go of her wrist and then the blade was gone, just like that, and his hands were wrapped around her throat. She struggled bodily against him, but her breath was already coming in gasps, her lungs were already on fire — and his grip was inhumanely strong. Iron fingers curled round, crushing her windpipe like she wound crush a fly. "_Doesn't it take more to kill a human?_" was her last coherent thought, a surprisingly valid inquiry that wasn't answered as her body went limp. Her blood churned blue in her veins, unable to bring that precious oxygen to her organs. Her lips were blue and her eyes glassy.

He stared down at the body, and then, with a clinical detachment, began to memorize every nuance of her form: he knew her personality — she was similar to him, in some ways. Enough that it wouldn't require much effort on his part to hide the glaring differences between her and him. Satisfied in his observations, he pulled vacantly at his physical features. His height declined, his hair lengthened and curled slightly at the ends, and he gained curves where he hadn't had any before; his face filled out a little, the edges becoming smoother — Loki turned to stare into the mirror. He smiled with a face that wasn't his.

Loki regarded the corpse, the rigor mortis beginning to set in, and with a casual wave of his hand, it was gone. He regarded his illusion with a quirked eyebrow, then it handed him the pistol and he fired it at the illusion, which dropped down to the ground in a mockery of death. A part of him twinged at seeing his face desecrated, brains blown out, an echo of pain coating the pale visage — but he cast it aside when the door swung open.

Two suits stood in the doorway, looking down at his corpse: "Clean this up, will you?"

One of the suits looped his arms around the illusion, and dragged it out the door, while the other one asked, "What'd he do, ma'am? I know he was a strange fellow, but he was _useful_..."

"He was overstepping his boundaries," Loki informed the man, pursing his lips in what might have passed for a thoughtful look, before he smirked.

The man inclined his head, "Sometimes, ma'am, I worry about your safety — you always pick up the worst ones out of country."

"No need to be so worried," he assured the suit pleasantly, falling into his role with a lifetime of practice's ease.

The suit looked at him funnily when the cleaning crew came in and nonchalantly began to scrape the bits of fake brain off of the far wall, and sponge off the blood on the floor. He quirked an eyebrow in question, inwardly wondering if this one could see that he wasn't really that woman, or that he could tell that Loki was still there, still alive, and shoo'd him away with a little motion of his right hand. The nails were painted a deep, inviting shade of blue.

It was time to lure his brother down to Midgard, to — for what, he didn't know, but he could improvise when the time came ("Did he want to kill Thor? Hurt him? Hug him? Break him? Love him?"). It was the only loose end in his mind, the thing that he had to deal with, because he didn't want to crave Odin's love and affection, he didn't want to crave for Odin's approval. But Thor, well, was different, in a sense: he had only ruined Loki's plans, hadn't lied to him, hadn't done the injustice of keeping the truth, a helpful but terrifying truth, from him.

Loki sighed.

It hurt not to know himself, to not know what _he_ wanted, needed from the world.

His resolve shook, then flattened back out: for a moment, just a moment, he let the shroud that obscured him from Heimdall's searching gaze fall.

He would welcome Thor if — when — he came.

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><p><strong>Notes:<strong> Loki, why are you disguised as a woman, dammit? Seriously, you have so many problems, you don't need woman problems too. D:

I would love to hear what y'all think of this. It really makes me work faster to know and chiz.

**Up next: **_"Brother — he lives?" Thor roared, grasping Heimdall by the shoulders, oblivious to the paling faces surrounding him._


	2. 01: The Cold, the Heat

**Disclaimer:** _Thor_ belongs to Marvel and its creators, writers, artists, and other respective copyright holders.

**Notes:** I was unexpectedly busy this past week, unf. I apologize for the delay, but, WOW! The reviews! Y'all are too kind — and, yeah, I knew about the whole 'Loki is/likes to be a Lady' thing. That's why I decided to do it. Okay, maybe this also had something to do with it: "Loki once spent eight winters beneath the earth as a woman milking cows, and during this time bore children." That made my day when I read it. Thank you, mythology books. And wikipedia. That too. ;D

So, yeah, my last line? Sarcasms. Hehehe.

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><p><strong>Wolf in the Fold<br>**01: _The Cold, the Heat_

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><p>Loki had a thought, as he was oft to, and while it was not his most dangerous thought of the minute, it was interesting — his thoughts often were. It absorbed his attention so that he paused in buttoning his pale, moss colored blouse up, leaving the lacy bra exposed. Despite the chill of his chambers, his skin did not prickle or clench into a bumpy slate like a mortal's would. His painted fingers finished buttoning the blouse, though he left enough undone so that the hollow of his throat and a portion of his cleavage remained visible. A necklace with a slim emerald that hung between his breasts and stood out prettily against his darker flesh went around his neck after a moment of consideration. He found himself considerably enamored and contradictorily disgusted by the richer tone his skin had taken in order to disguise himself as the human woman he had slaughtered. Still, his lips quirked upward when he caught a glance of himself in the mirror.<p>

He hissed out a laugh before he retrieved a rather inconspicuous manila folder from his dresser and tucked it under his arm, and then made for the door. It slid open for him, and the sound of his high heels striking the smooth, shiny floor echoed pleasantly in the mostly empty hall. There were a few, sharp-dressed suits who nodded at him, small smiles on their faces: "Mornin', ma'am," was how they would greet him, or, "You look pleased today, Miss Cross." It all depended on their level of bravado.

His smile would get broader depending on how brave they were; Cross had always been fond of smiling at her employees, and it made his cheeks sore by the end of each day.

Of course, he had made some changes from Cross's previous "business", if it could have been called that. He had brought it from shady rendezvous in back alley's and underhanded taking over of other businesses to a more benevolent seeming organization, building weapons and such, seeing as the weapons industry had undergone an exciting boom after Tony Stark had withdrawn Stark Enterprises from the practice of weapons making. Thought the apparent benevolent nature of Cross Labs tended to be a front for the continuous shady and preferably illegal experiments and methods happening behind closed doors. His business attracted the runaways from SHIELD and Stark Enterprises' weapon making days.

A lot of his runaways had a thing for explosives and malevolent artificial intelligences, and, occasionally, for unleashing those on unsuspecting citizens.

Loki never defended those particular researchers if they got caught in the act, preferring to remain blissfully unattached to any mayhem and mischief that he himself did not cause. To do so would likely push back his machinations by far; and he would rather not have any unfortunate blips in the scheme of things. Besides, if there were any of those unfortunate blips, they would be dealt with, soundlessly and painfully.

Elsie Cross had lived in the same building as she worked and operated in, and Loki had seen no reason to change that: convenience, and that his experience with finding a place to dwell and rest in Midgard had been unpleasant to the date. Although, he had changed the sheets to a softer, silkier make with a practiced hand, and superimposed his own, personal flair to the decorations of the chambers and the office. Nothing entirely noticeable, nothing that would bring attention to a major shift in Cross's personality. Not that any of her employees, friends, or family would have been able to prove that Loki was not, in fact, Cross. His magic seeped down to his bones; his transformation was flawless in the genetic regard.

He took a seat behind his desk, and flipped through the file he had brought with him in a casual manner; he had pilfered the folder from a research facility in New Mexico, where a certain Jane Foster was working alongside SHIELD and Stark Enterprises to reconstruct the Bifröst on a mortal level. From the file, which had been updated two days ago, he could tell that they were making very little progress, despite all of their funding and geniuses. With nothing but speculation and the end point to go on, reverse engineering — or even engineering in short — something as technologically and magically complex as the Bifröst was taking them time.

They had a good foundation, though, and Loki would estimate it as another four Earthen months before they were testing a prototype.

It was a short while for Loki, for Thor, for any æsir, but a long while for the mortals.

"Tea, Miss Cross?" asked a familiar voice, belonging to a pleasant young lady who was interning at Cross Labs, and was fond of making him tea in the morning. She was trying to schmooze him, that he knew, but saw no reason to discourage her; her physical resemblance to his brother might have been a part of that — blond hair, blue eyes, a bright and cheerful grin. Her startling honesty, however, was often turned to dry sarcasm as the humans he had come across were fond of. Insatiably so.

Usually, the young ones were more practiced in the art.

Loki smirked at her, and set his papers down, noticing that she already had a mug in hand, curls of steam raising from the top. He caught the scent of milk and cinnamon, "Of course I do. What kind have you brought today?"

She passed the mug into his outstretched hand, "Rooibus tea, the cinnamon chai kind — with milk, your favorite."

He took a sip of the rooibus — it was sweet with what was best described as a sharp aftertaste, and it fit his taste better than anything Asgard had ever offered. Asgard's meals had always been rich, thick in taste and heavy on the blood; whereas he had found that subtle flavors were more suited to him, as was his personality. He hummed around the rim of the white mug, painted lips leaving a mark when he pulled away to offer the Thor-lookalike a look.

"What's in the folder?" she inquired, hands folded daintily behind her back. Ah, so that was what she wanted today.

"Oh, Natalie," Loki returned, eyes narrowing, "Why do you want to know?"

Natalie breathed, her brow twisting with annoyance. "I'm curious, ma'am. Does it have to do with Foster? I've seen you looking up anything you can get on Jane Foster's wormhole project."

"Think of it as an interest in Stark's work; he is competition, whether he knows it or not," he offered, his expression unconcerned but his eyes deadly. He had been rifling through Stark's projects when he had come upon the Bifröst one. "You're dismissed, Natalie — go see if Gerard needs any assistance in his latest project. Report to me if he's doing anything he shouldn't be." Not that Loki didn't already know that the man was planning on unleashing some product of an unholy union between a robot and a crocodile unto the world. He wasn't sure what city yet, but that was because even Gerard didn't know.

Alone, he turned to the expanse of window, and looked out over the city: bustling streets, rushing and scrambling little mortals trying to fill what little time they had to live.

He had a thought, neither dangerous nor mischievous, as he often did, though it was interesting, as they often were — time, he reasoned, flowed differently on Midgard than it did on Asgard. Time on Midgard was fleeting, and fast flowing, which was why the mortals had advanced so fast, so far in so little time in comparison to Asgard: Midgard's day was his hour, their month was his day, and their year only a portion of his month. To him — to Thor — it had only been a few weeks of separation between the two realms, while for the mortals, especially the ones working on creating a Bifröst, it had been more than a year.

Loki hissed at the thought that the mortals might be losing their motivation after a year of their time spent, seemingly fruitless.

His mind turned to the remains of the Bifrost. It would have, logically, fallen to the cold wasteland of Jötunheim, where the jotnar would have poked and prodded at it before deciding that it was utterly useless to them, and left it to frost over.

If Foster, with SHIELD and Stark's assistance and funding, could not complete the Bifröst, could not lure Thor back down to Midgard, then who said he couldn't help? He had the means to get to a broken piece, to drop it off at Foster's facility, and then haul the rest of it back to Cross Labs to be reconstructed under his supervision. A deadly smile twisted into existence on his face, and he leaned back, closed his eyes and tugged aimlessly as the hidden threads that pulled him into his secret passageways between realms. He followed the familiar pathway to Jötunheim, the air growing colder and more comfortable as he walked.

He looked out onto the frozen landscape with a considering expression: where had it fallen?

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><p>Thor was about to take his hourly — hourly because he had been enlightened to the fact that time passed differently on Midgard than it did on Asgard ("On Midgard, time flies. Our hour is their day. 'Tis why they seem so rushed, the mortals, that is.") — visit to Heimdall, in order to ask about Jane, when the doors to Conference Hall slammed open. In marched Heimdall, a determined and slightly torn expression on his face: his all-seeing eyes slid from Thor, to Odin, and then back to Thor. Was Jane injured? Was she ill? Was she in danger, when he could not reach her? Had she stopped working on recreating the Bifrost?<p>

All eyes turned to him, and without preamble, Heimdall announced: "I have seen Loki."

"Brother — he lives?" Thor roared, grasping Heimdall by the shoulders; he remained oblivious to the paling faces surrounding him. "Loki survived the fall? Is he well?"

"He lives," the Gatekeeper repeated, looking beyond Thor to Odin, "He is well enough, if he can be well, considering that he was immensely pleased at having taken the form of a mortal woman."

The Thunderer paid no heed to the whispers filling the Hall; his brother lived, despite it all, his brother was alive. He had felt no joy since the trickster tumbled down to the void.

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><p>It was cold. Mind- and ass-numbingly cold, and Loki felt more comfortable — more at home — than he ever had in Asgard (his body belonged to the jötnar; his rearing belonged to the æsir; his mind was of his own make). And yet, yet there was a part of him, infantile and strange, that longed for the roaring hearths and golden splendor of his once-home; familiarity, he begged, decided, and then denied. It was the fire.<p>

It was always the fire; the soft, mad crackle and snap of burning wood (sometimes, sometimes it was burning, singed flesh) would always lure him, entrance him like some fire-mad beast. Like an animal, a newly weaned foal or dazed dog, he would stare, enamored and deep into the churning heat until the glow faded down to the coals, when his eyes would slide to a shut. His heart would slow, and his blood would turn sluggish. Now, though, the fire would quicken the pulse in his neck, and _dance_ for him. The heat crackled, cooed, writhed and moved for him; it was no longer the powerful mystique that hypnotized him as a youth, now it was he that hypnotized the flame.

Asgard had been full of flame, of that rolling, burning heat: Odin burned bright, but not as bright as the savagery that had thrived in Thor — the æsir and the ásynjur burned, not as bright individually, but in large groups the flames could not be doused. He grew up surrounded by fire, literal and metaphorical, and that made the cold, however loving and longing, foreign. It accepted him, and his body accepted it, but his mind and once-home could not accept the cold as a welcoming thing.

Loki hissed and drew back from his thoughts, wary and wild.

His pupils dilated and his heart quickened, a macabre mess of tangled imaginings surged forth, and he wanted —

Loki breathed.

"_Where,_" he asked after the storm, a churning flurry of snowflakes ghosting past, "_Where is the Bifröst?_"

For a moment, he thought his birthplace would deny him — and why not? He _had_ tried to destroy the place — and then he heard it, on the wind. Soft. No more than a whisper that he would have missed had he not been listening for it. A small, faint voice on the horizon, near his ear, but not; a minuscule creature, dainty and white, with twinkling little wings made of ice shards. It perched on his shoulder, leaned close to his ear, and whispered. His ears strained to hear the normally inaudible sound.

_East. Go east — to the great chasm before the palace._

He skipped the east and just went to the chasm, and stared long and hard over the edge, down into the darkness. He stared for a moment longer, swallowed a nervous little swallow, and then stepped over the edge —

Loki fell, but only for a little while; he struck the ground on his feet, silent and cushioned by magic and strong, dense bones. There was no jötunn in sight, beyond himself, and the Bifröst lay smoldering before him.

Later that night, Jane Foster would awake to find a small, but informative piece of the Bifröst resting on her pillow.

Later that night, Loki would magic the rest of the Bifröst to Cross Labs.

Later that night, Thor would once again whoop with joy.

But it was then, in the now, that a smile spread across Loki's face, one that threatened to crack, and he laughed. Neither loud nor maniacal. It was hushed, sweet and smooth.

Even Jötunheim could bend to his will, and thus, he would go far — farther than he had ever planned.

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><p><strong>Notes:<strong> Oh, god, Loki. You are making your plans scarily big. Stop that. D:

And stop comparing people to Thor, darn it. Just. Stop. You will only make it hurt worse. So, so much worse.

The next chapter should be longer, by at least a thousand words (hopefully).

**Up next:** _"So, _this_ is a god?" Stark wondered, "I thought he would be more... you know. More."_


End file.
